GRAND TOUR Loire-Atlantique
The pizzas at the on-site restaurant, Les Terrasses du Petit Port, were excellent
Les Machines de l’Île’s magnificent elephant ‘walks’ the Île de Nantes motorhome, though, is that it is on tram link to the city centre. Bryony – well known for her organisational skills – had checked the approach to the site online. That was just as well because the entrance was on a roundabout, but with her navigation we sailed through to reception without a hitch. The staff spoke excellent English and soon had us settled on our pitch. We headed straight to the restaurant for lunch; it was busy with locals, and very good. We then spent the afternoon checking out the amenities – which included a large swimming pool at the
leisure centre across the road that site guests could use for free – and puzzling over the French instructions at the tram stop. Back at reception we discovered that a Nantes pass for 24, 48 or 72 hours would cover our travel around the city, and get us into the top attractions. We bought a 48-hour pass and, with a list of attractions in hand and a shocking lack of imagination for a dinner venue, headed back to the site restaurant. AN AWESOME ELEPHANT We were like excited children as we used our passes to board the tram at
Morrhonnière-Petit Port: neither of us wanted to put off riding the Les Machines de l’Île’s Grand Éléphant. It takes about 40 minutes and two tram rides to reach the former shipbuilding yards of the Île de Nantes; we could have walked it in just over an hour, but wanted to save energy. It was thrilling to see the 12-metre elephant standing in the glass and steel warehouse that was built for a very different purpose in the early 20th century. Nantes’ shipbuilding yards closed in 1987, and the city suffered an economic decline as a result. The council called for ideas to bolster its ailing fortunes and, incredibly, went for the mad-cap projects put forward by Les Machines de l’Île’s François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice. Two projects have since been completed, and we couldn’t wait to climb aboard the first: the huge, beautifully adorned wooden elephant. Our ride wasn’t due to start until 2pm, so we went in search of lunch. To be close to the forthcoming action we had lunch in the hangar at Stereolux, a café/bar that serves the theatre there. Somehow I managed to order a French version of fish and chips, much to the waiter’s amusement. We climbed two flights of stairs to board the beast, and there was a bit of a scramble to get the best viewpoint from the top of the howdah (elephant www.practicalmotorhome.com | July 2015 | 29